"It was formerly one of the puzzles of history to know what became of the ten tribes. There were several theories, because of the fact that some Jewish monuments were found in China, some writers tracked them to that land. Others found their descendants in India... The general consensus of scientific opinion, however, is that the tribes became absorbed, as subsequent vanished traces have, in neighboring nations, and thus were not lost in the real significance of the term.. Dr. Giles Fletcher (1548-1611) identified the Tartars with the lost 10 tribes; consult his 'The Tartars' printed in 'Israel Redux,' edited by S. Lee (1667). Dr. Francois Bernier (1620-1688), French physician for 12 years to the Great Moghul of India, in 'Les voyages de Bernier contenant la description des Etats du Grand Mogul de l'hindoustan' (1699), speculates on the Kashmiris as descendants of the lost 10 tribes from certain customs and rites, and the prevailing type of facial features, as also of the neighboring Afghans and the Tajiks of Badakhshan, being distinctly Hebraic." (The Encyclopedia Americana, 1956 ed., art. %u2018Lost Ten Tribes%u2019. Vol. Xvii, p. 632.)
